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The tech it takes to put on the Oscars

Each year, the Oscars get a tech upgrade, especially in the area of sound. It's held at the Dolby Theatre, after all. What does it take to produce Hollywood's grandest awards show, watched by viewers around the world? CNET''s Kara Tsuboi takes you backstage.

2:30 / 21 February 2015

Transcript

Hollywood's most glamorous night takes thousands of people and an astounding amount of [INAUDIBLE] to pull off.
Crews roll out 500 feet of red carpet but that's nothing compared to the miles and miles of cable needed for the broadcast.
Much of which is plugged into trucks at the so called Broadcast compound right outside the theater.&gt;&gt; The director sits in the truck behind me, as well as the.
The, the editors, everything that goes over the air is done in these two trucks.
Since the show is seen by 1.2 billion viewers in more than 200 countries, there are multiple backup plans.
The signal has multiple fiber feeds, but we also have satellite feeds.
So they can cut from one feed to another pretty seamless.
Transforming the tourist hotspot and thirty four hundred seat movie theater into the home of the Oscars means removing a massive movie screen, tons of cable, dozens of seats, and twenty eight rigging motors inside the auditorium.&gt;&gt;The Academy, uses very few motors in the Oscars.
Motors can fail, so they're, they're still using the old pipe and ropes and counterweights.
Another element, not in the auditorium on Oscar night, the orchestra.
While people at home, and inside the theatre, can hear the orchestra music, it's actually being performed, here, a mile away, live, at Capital Records.
The music is then piped through fiber optic cables, back to the theatre and, it only takes 2.7 milliseconds.
We just keep trying to get that latency down.
It's close to zero so the performers can hear exactly what the orchestra's doing and the orchestra can respond with them to their [UNKNOWN] you know seamlessly performing together.
Movie clips and musical performances will be in Dolby 5.1 surround sound.
Home viewers with surround sound setup can have a similar sound experience as the celebrities.
And now the people that do have a theater can have an experience, but the people that are watching in their kitchen and their bedroom and their bathroom, on the sofa, you know, we want everybody to have a good experience.
Technology at the theaters is also helping stars and their fans connect through social media.
This year, the Green Room designed by Architectural Digest will have Samsung Tablet and Gif Mirror for celebrity reactions powered by Twitter.
VIPs can hang out in the Dolby lounge to text and Instagram to their heart's content.
The Academy added a 4G LTE cell tower to improve connectivity.
But there are no charging stations, since most celebrities aren't using their phones during the ceremony.
Unless they're taking the ultimate Hollywood selfie.
In Los Angeles I'm Carez Dubois, cnet.com for CBS news.

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